H.R. Clinton: Free Speech

Remarks on the Human Rights Agenda for the 21st Century


Hillary Rodham Clinton
Secretary of State
Georgetown University's Gaston Hall
Washington, DC
December 14, 2009

In our first session, we cosponsored the successful resolution on Freedom of Expression, a forceful declaration of principle at a time when that freedom is jeopardized by new efforts to constrain religious practice, including recently in Switzerland, and by efforts to criminalize the defamation of religion – a false solution which exchanges one wrong for another. And in the United Nations Security Council, I was privileged to chair the September session where we passed a resolution mandating protections against sexual violence in armed conflict.

The Secretary of State packed three lies into the single sentence quoted above.

1. The cited resolution is not a forceful declaration of principle. While it is acclaimed as a rejection of the concept of 'defamation of religion', it embraces 'negative stereotyping' as a grounds for outlawing expression, a distinction without a difference. The clear intention is to make criticism of Islam a criminal offense.
2. The Swiss ban on minaret construction does not impair practice, it outlaws erection of a symbol of supremacism. I find no mention of minarets in the Hilali & Khan Noble Qur'an translation. I find no reference to the construction of minarets in the four top hadith collections & Ibn Kathir's Tafsir except to the rebuilding of one destroyed by fire.
3. There is no wrong to exchange; declaration of the fact that Muhammad, founder of Islam, was a terrorist is not wrong, neither is it an act which should be criminalized. While the Motoons exaggerate, they expose reality. Exposing the violent verses of the Qur'an is not wrong, it is an an exposure of intrinsic evil, as in the case of Geert Wilders' documentary, Fitna. There is no justification for outlawing Fitna and the Motoons. Unlike Islamic scripture, they neither inculcate hatred nor incite violence. The riots which followed publication of the Motoons were incited by incendiary sermons at Juma Salat, not by the Motoons.